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Conventional bacon and sausage - yes or no?

07-18-2012, 06:39 PM

When breakfast options are scant, is sausage, or bacon a good choice, or am I better off with nuts and yogurt? I suspect the bacon and sausage are cheap and not good quality. However, is that enough not to eat them?

I avoid bacon, sausage, ground beef, etc unless I know it's free of nitrites, is uncured, grass-fed etc.
Eggs should be OK, though O3/pastured are more nutritious. As long as the yogurt doesn't have sugar (rare) and has full fat content I'll have it.

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Yeh, bacon is such an awesome treat, I hold off unless it's primo quality. Last time I had bacon, I ate a LOT of it, haha.
Like Mark says, I'd rather I.F. than eat some crap I may regret afterwards.

So I'd say yes to the nuts & yogurt, as Tom B-D said, as long as the yogurt isn't sugar laden. If it was, even conventionally prepared nuts alone will be just ok, in a pinch, but better than low quality bacon. This is my view, for me.

"Science is not belief but the will to find out." ~ Anonymous"Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart." ~ Gandhi
"The flogging will continue until morale improves." ~ Unknown

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If its once in a while, I don't see why a few slices of conventional bacon or sausage would do you much harm. I don't believe nitrates are really bad for you - there's two opposing views on that, you can read both sides to see what you believe.
Fruit is hard to go wrong with, but those nuts, how old and rancid are they?
I'd eat the protein, because I'm more likely to get hungry later after the fruit and eat something worse cause my blood sugar is low.

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I say yes to bacon even if its not primo quality. Bacon looks like....well sliced meat. I see sausage as a bit more iffy. Dunno, just something about that packaging that gives me pause.

In the end I do buy my stuff from a free range farmer, but when I'm outa bacon I'm not scared to grab a pack of the best I can find at the conventional market.

As to the nitrite/nitrate scare I believe there may be evidence that "nitrate/nitrite free" has just as much if not more in it as conventionally cured. I'm more concerned with the health of the animal and how it was raised prior to slaughter.

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We just had sausage & eggs for dinner, both homegrown. I made patties from the sausage and even though it has 30% fat mixed in, when I went to wash my hands, there was no greasy coating like you get from storebought meat. When you read about what is considered appropriate food for feedlot animals, it makes sense that their fat would feel more like vaseline on your hands, and probably do some nasty stuff to your insides.

But when you're in a pinch, you have to make do....
I'd try some of each, and go back for more of what tasted the least creepy.

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Sausage (hotdogs too) = elbows, noses & kneecaps. WAY more iffy! I want my cartilage, tendons & such meat bits to be good or great quality, w/out the antibiotics, steroids, hormones & suffering of commercial meats. Bacon, I will backtrack & concede your points, at least it's an identifiable single part of the pig, even if it's not free range or organic. Would I eat a possibly rancid 1/2 dozen nuts or the same weight of commercial bacon though? Again, that's an IF opportunity for me.

"Science is not belief but the will to find out." ~ Anonymous"Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart." ~ Gandhi
"The flogging will continue until morale improves." ~ Unknown

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When breakfast options are scant, is sausage, or bacon a good choice, or am I better off with nuts and yogurt? I suspect the bacon and sausage are cheap and not good quality. However, is that enough not to eat them?

Only uncured bacon and high quality sausage for me. Like others say, I'd rather eat something else than eat poor quality food.

Full fat, plain yogurt and raw nuts! Yum. Toss some cinnamon and a couple of raisins and I'm good to go. Actually, I don't do dairy right now but I love me some full fat goat yogurt!!!!

I save the bacon grease for cooking. I just made a warm vinaigrette for a slaw a few minutes ago with some and it was AWESOME!

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Age 48
Start date: 7-5-12
5'3"
121lbs
GOAL: to live to be a healthy and active 100

"In health there is freedom. Health is the first of all liberties."
Henri Frederic Amiel

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Dairy is creepy. Just coat your pan with some coconut oil and cook up 2-3 organic eggs-- I can find them at any grocery store, even Walmart. You won't be hungry and you don't have to mess around with anything questionable. Works for me in a pinch, anyway.

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I make my own bacon and sausage (both fresh and cured) so I know exactly what cuts of meat and the prorportions of spices and cure etc that go in to it, Aftter learning about sausage making, I am much more suspect about the amount of water that is in commercial sausage. Yes, water is used as a "filler" in some sausages. Sausages that are "emulsions" (hot dogs, bologna etc) there is ALOT of water in them....

As far as nitrates go, there are more nitrate in fresh spinach than are in commercial bacon.

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Dairy is creepy. Just coat your pan with some coconut oil and cook up 2-3 organic eggs-- I can find them at any grocery store, even Walmart. You won't be hungry and you don't have to mess around with anything questionable. Works for me in a pinch, anyway.

Why is dairy "creepy"...
I've actually met the cows that my milk comes from, they happen to be very lovely bovine ladies.
100% organic, pastured, grass fed beauties. All three of them.

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”
~Friedrich Nietzsche
And that's why I'm here eating HFLC Primal/Paleo.

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Personally, I'll eat store-bought bacon although I prefer my nitrate free type. Sausage, I like to get Spolumbo's... they have an ingredient list three items long, last time I checked. Pork, spices and water, haha. I do occasionally eat sausage with a few more ingredients but I try to avoid anything containing sugar.

Out of context quote for the day:

Clearly Gorbag is so awesome he should be cloned, reproducing in the normal manner would only dilute his awesomeness. - Urban Forager

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I have no idea who this guy is, but his reasoning seems plausible at first glance. I've seen the packages of bacon that say "nitrate free" and they do indeed have celery powder. What I did not know is that vegetables provide most of the nitrates we consume. If this is true, then what's the big deal with it being in bacon? Have we been duped by clever marketing?

As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.